1. It added a seventh home game to the 2019 schedule. The 2019 home schedule is weak (Furman, Old Dominion, Duke, North Carolina, Pitt, and Wake Forest). That's due to the odd-year flip-flop of ACC games, plus lack of a marquee non-conference game in Lane Stadium (and I expect ECU's replacement to be a sleeper, but that doesn't matter). Wake Forest is a solid rotational matchup, but not a headliner. Babcock tried to make up for quality with quantity. And at this stage in the game, it's a shrewd move to make season ticket packages more appealing.

2. The series was stale, and 100% of Virginia Tech fans wanted to see it end (+/- 1% error). The two programs played 21 times since 1987, and every year except 2012 from 2007 through 2017. The Hokies were scheduled to face the Pirates six times over the next seven seasons. And even though the home games against the Pirates remain the schedule, Babcock was playing chess.

#Hokies AD Whit Babcock on future ECU games: "As of now, the games that are to be played in Blacksburg are still on the schedule. If East Carolina still wants to come up and play, we'll happily host them."— Mike Barber (@RTD_MikeBarber) December 22, 2018

Babcock said games at home with ECU still scheduled, though he added that he'd be "surprised" if Pirates came up to play those. Said they talked about neutral site game in 2019 with ECU but couldn't make it happen. #Hokies— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) December 22, 2018

Now the ball is in East Carolina's court. Its new athletic director, Jon Gilbert, made public comments about the significance of the series.

"We have talked and it's an important series," Gilbert said of communicating with the Hokies. "It's a series East Carolina has had back to 1956. The teams go back and forth. We travel well there. They travel well here. It's a good regional game. I think it is important. We want to be good partners and we want to make it work."

It became less of a partnership this past season when ECU made a unilateral decision and announcement to cancel the 2018 contest.

Babcock said #Hokies had thought about re-evaluating schedule with ECU in the past, but the miscommunication with the cancellation earlier this year led VT to move to opt out of those games.— Andy Bitter (@AndyBitterVT) December 22, 2018

Either the Pirates travel to Blacksburg and Virginia Tech benefits from a home-only series against a G5 program (I hear the "big dogs" barking), or the Pirates walk away from the table and Tech schedules fresher, possibly more desirable, non-conference matchups. Both outcomes are beneficial for the Hokies.

Yeah I'm sure we'd totally be screwed trying to find someone of ECUs quality to fill that kind of slot. And I'm sure other P5 programs won't be paying attention to how they managed to keep fucking over a P5 program for their own gains. I'm sure others would totally be willing to schedule at ECU for the effort going forward.

I'd love for them to continue going down the petty path. They're the ones in need of the handout, not us.

I don't think ECU will play any nasty games here. Either through incompetence or miscalculation, and probably due to the absence of an AD, they have already screwed up once. If they play any more nasty tricks they will be blackballed.

And contrary to the "hatin' on Liberty" crowd here, scheduling Liberty was the right call from a football perspective. I've always thought that scheduling additional ECU games was too much, because we already had ECU fatigue at that point.

Even more enjoyable right now is going to Boneyard Banter to see the outright vitriol being spewed toward Whit after those same people went on the offensive toward us after the game was cancelled. Their reaction was a big part of why this thing soured and now they're livid they have to sleep in this bed they made.

In all honesty we should have moved on from the series regardless. To say it was a stale series is an understatement. I read some of their fans comments. What they dont seem to realize is that college football is basically just a business. They made a business decision that negatively impacted us after we gave them a permanent P5 opponent. It was time for everyone to move on. Their fan base needs to be more reasoned.

I know, I can't stand them using that. There is UVA-level butt hurt going on over there. You made a really dumb string of decisions and now you're paying for it. I admittedly gave them the benefit of the doubt when the game was first called but after the way they handled the whole situation I couldn't be more happy we're done with those petty Pirates. The booty is all ours, bitches. ARGHHHHH

In the spirit of Christmas, I have this assessment of ECU:
ECU uses 2007 like Danny Kaye used his arm in White Christmas. They did something nice in a time of need. While most decent people would have done the exact same thing in the same situations, they used their "heroics" to get their way.

I really hope we schedule lower tier P5 programs instead of these group of five teams, I always enjoy playing teams like Indiana or a Oregon st. If we're gonna play weak times I'm happy to trade fcs or group of 5 teams (there's only a handful actually worth the potential loss) for lower tier P5 teams.

I'm guessing the UCF coaches had that conversation with him before making a committable offer, and he assured them that he realizes he screwed up and it won't happen again. No coach wants to deal with that.

While, I too, was getting tired of ECU, I'm not thrilled about having 2 FCS foes in one year. If we're gonna do that, bring in North Dakota State or another FCS top-5 program. We only get so many games per year. If we're going to schedule "tune-up" games, we might as well make them worthy opponents, so we get some valuable experience from it. I'm sure a lot of folks will point to NDSU's record of success against FBS teams and argue that we don't want to play a game we might lose, but who cares? We can only count one FCS win toward bowl eligibility anyway. Let's get the best possible opponent in here.

“You got one guy going boom, one guy going whack, and one guy not getting in the endzone.”
― John Madden (describing VT's offense?)

What that basically means is that ECU over played their hand. That is because playing ECU has ZERO value to Virginia Tech as a program. Therefore, Virginia Tech has ZERO incentive to be overly accommodating.

Sometimes programs and their ADs need a reality check. I feel for the new AD.

I gave a leg, instead of a down vote, but I 100% disagree with this. I don't feel for him at all. He was hired in 3 weeks ago. He should have gotten an honest assessment of the situation and realized that a poor decision was made and been VERY accommodating, if he wanted to keep the series. Neutral site for 2019, to keep the series wasn't an over the top demand.

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There is very little you can do as a new AD at this point. He was likely in the dark about all the real details about what happened until after the ink was dry on the contract. Now, if he backs out, he's the bad guy and in breach of contract. In reality there is very little recourse he would have. For the most part all that information is considered confidential and he wouldn't be entitled to it prior to hiring on (regardless of what NDAs have been signed).

lol they got their beat writers spinning this more than a dreidel . they fucked up when they hired ruffin the scab, fucked up even worse when they fired him, and now this. i think they are now realizing that they are a directional backup school with a mickey mouse athletic program.

Well, technically speaking, a president precedent was set that the visiting team can cancel with no penalty. I'm guessing that this isn't just a troll attempt, but the fact that it would be very tough for ECU to claim damages, when the didn't pay VT damages.

So it's a slow work day, I went through a bunch of the power schools' schedules and figured out that Houston has an open slot for 2019 (Link Here). I think this is our best shot of filling the slot with a quality opponent without having a school break an existing game to come to play us.

I also think it would be ironic to have a better AAC program to come play us instead of ECU....akin to breaking up with a girl and then start dating her younger, hotter cousin.

I'd also be down if a power 5 school broke an existing game to either come to Lane or have a neutral site game in FedEx.

I feel kinda split on this. On the one hand, we have an abysmal record there (1-3), plus I don't wanna send anymore fundage to one Dan Snyder. On the other side of the coin, the one game we DID win there was a key moment (WVU) & very tormenting for them. Fuente finally got that monkey off our back (& he's been systematically doing that at most of NFL venues we've played at).

I don't care about the superstitious aspect. The parking is a disaster and the stadium isn't nice. The obstructed veiw seats are horrendous. Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte is a far superior venue. If you want a neutral site game close by do it there.

I have never been to M&T Bank stadium so I don't know if it is nice or not but Charlotte as a location is nicer than Baltimore . Close is a relative term and Charlotte is close relative to the other common neutral sight options in Georgia and Florida. I'm not aware of any neutral site games hosted at M&T Bank Stadium.

So if you're wanting to distribute it, play a game in Charlotte. Off the top of my head, we have played in FedEx 4 times (USC, Boise, Cinci, WVU) and in Charlotte once (ECU). But that ECU game was a ECU home game moved and was actually a ECU home game in everything but location for everyone who was there.

Let us host a game or two in Charlotte, and let the NC alumni have their fun.

See I don't like counting the ACC Championship game as a VT neutral site. When we play against Clemson, which we did the last 2 times, we're easily outnumbered 2 to 1 and it might as well be a road game. And those bowl games you only have a couple weeks to plan for, and unless its NY6 or playoff, attendance in any bowl struggles.

Give me a neutral site in Charlotte that is announced a year or two in advance giving us time to plan for it, and it'll be great for our alumni and fans. And really, its so much better of a venue than FedEx, we really should try and do that more often.

While I agree that Charlotte is a better quality than DeadEx (especially because Snyder isn't involved), it's still not a favorable location for the alumni based in Nova, MD, Central & Tidewater VA. And I'd be willing to gander that those are where the bulk of the alumni & fan base resides (in comparison & with respect to the awesome fanbase holding & locking it down in Carolina).

And concentrating only on Nova and the 757 is a great way to make the NC alumni feel forgotten and ignored to the point where they don't feel bothered to donate anymore.

Last year, for the Duke game, despite having about 300 in an alumni event next to Wallace Wade, Whit didn't bother to make an appearance for us as he had the 2 or 3 previous games in Duke, all of which also had the same event in the same venue. Later found out Whit was at the game, so it was an intentional decision to not show up. And it wasn't for lack of reaching out on the organizer's part.

Its great that we're making inroads in places like the 757, but don't rob Peter to pay Paul. You have to keep the outreach going everywhere, and they're majorly dropping the ball in some of our largest non-VA bases lately. Raleigh has been essentially forgotten the last year, and our alumni base is one of the 2 or 3 largest outside Virginia/NoVa.

Alright in terms of Whit making appearances or not, that's definitely & absolutely something I have zero control over. But I believe I have an equitable solution: all the fanbase in VA advocate and impress upon Whit to make his appearances to the NC fanbase (as well as scheduling an additional non-bowl, non conference champ game in Charlotte), while the NC fanbase impress upon Whit to schedule a separate game for M&T. There, problem solved. Everybody looking out for everyone.

And it may have been, but that was no neutral site game. ECU's PA was calling everything for the in-stadium audience. They used the standard ECU in-game presentation for all sounds and animations on the scoreboard. They hyped the crowd on 3rd downs when we were on offense, and didn't return the favor when we were on defense. It was every bit the one sided shitshow we saw in Bristol.